Hands down.

Dec. 2nd, 2011 11:22 pm
pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

 

When it comes to accessories, few things are as gratifying to wear as a well-made pair of gloves. There’s just so much detail and construction that goes into making them, y’know? Fingers are always the first to go numb and the last to heat up when the temperatures plummet, and that can be a real nuisance when the majority of your time is spent doing things that require high levels of dexterity. There are many wardrobe pieces that one can skimp on and still find perfectly suitable knock-offs. A good pair of leather gloves is not one of these.

Back in November of 2004, I bought a pair of buttery Italian kid leather gloves with the softest cashmere lining out of some catalogue that I no longer even remember the name of. I was still in California at the time, so there was no real justification for spending that much on accessories other than because I’d always wanted a pair. Seven years of heavy use later, I still consider them one of the best investments I’ve ever made in cold-weather wear. They’re quite beat-up now, but age has only made them softer and more comfortable. Unfortunately, they are also a bit on the baggy-and-wrinkly side, so don’t necessarily look as nice on dress-up nights as they used to.

I found the above pair of cashmere-lined lambskin gloves this afternoon while out shopping with a friend and snapped them up in an instant. No brand tag, or I’d share. Am loving the little Victorian-esque details and the feel of smooth, new leather. They are also a little longer than my other pair, so there will be nice wrist coverage. I have no doubt that they will also be with me 7 years from now. Now, if only I could find a pair in something other than black.

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

It’s been a while since my last crafting update and I’ve made a handful of things since then. Been mostly concentrating on knitting since I started last spring, trying to pick projects each time that are both functional and instructional. These are the results! Pictures link to corresponding Ravelry pages.

 

A classic wool pullover with just a few modifications to sleeve and hem lengths. I didn’t mean to make it in Finnish colors, but it was what I had on hand so I went with it. I <3 stripes! A garment with many firsts — my first time knitting with more than one color, first time pick up collar stitches, and first time setting in sweater sleeves. Also, this is my first sweater to actually fit the way I’d imagined it would, so I’m sort of excited about that.

 

One of two ribbed alpaca scarves made for the husband to add some variety to his neckwear. This one is a seeded rib that looks really nice with suits and darker coats. Tweaked to be skinnier and longer, to work better with his preferred way of wearing scarves. Making dude scarves is always something of a challenge, since it’s all about finding that fine line between restraint and style.

  

A grey wool ribbed short-sleeve sweater and my first project done completely in the round. This turned out a bit bulkier than I’d expected due to gauge issues with my loose knitting. Still, it’s quite wearable for layering and gave me a reason to use up some of the extra purple ribbon I had left over from the wedding reception :-)

 

A simple, squishy ribbed scarf made of fluffy-soft alpaca. My first shot at ribbing, this also proved to be a very forgiving combination for missed stitches. Good thing, too, because I didn’t learn how to unravel and pick up stitches until two projects later, so had to basically start from scratch if I wanted to delete a mistake before that!

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from The Velvet Kerfuffle.

Since she was young, Misu has had a talent for underestimating her own size. This has led to many occasions where she will wedge in or perch on places that really are not meant to support a creature of her… *cough* stately magnitude. Today, I share with you a collection of such moments caught on camera.

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from The Velvet Kerfuffle.

We saw some of Germany this past weekend. It was pretty!

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

I have a lot of scarves. Even before we moved to Finland, where you actually use them for more than half the year, I had a lot of scarves. My mom was paranoid that way. Back in Cali, however, they tended to just sit in a giant pile that was occasionally rummaged through on a windy day. As we enter my second Finnish winter here, though, I decided we needed a better system for making winter accessories easily accessible. Thus, the wall o’ scarf. It’s a IKEA belt/scarf/tie hanger nailed to the wall. Right next to the coat rack and across from the drawers where we keep the gloves and hats. So you can’t put on a coat without coming face to face with the whole collection and have enough time to ponder what will go with your particular outfit before you finish getting dressed. Convenient, no? Now, if only I could find room for a bag/purse rack…

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from The Velvet Kerfuffle.

Our younger cat, Coco, is Siamese on her father’s side. This is especially evident in her very vocal interactions with us. Every morning, Coco gives me a detailed report of the happenings of the night before and the status of the food bowl. Since it seems that she doesn’t get nearly as much camera time on this blog as she should, I thought I’d share some of yesterday’s conversation with you :-)

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from The Velvet Kerfuffle.

[gallery]

We were out shopping along the canal for wedding stationery and encountered this parade. Mostly, I just like dancers who wear feathers, so I recorded some :-)

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

Just an excuse to share pictures of flowers, really. You must understand, though, that I’d never received a real gift bouquet (because do graduation carnations count? I think not) until I met T five-ish years ago. Goes with the not-dating-much territory, I suppose. And I was far too cautious a child to ever end up in the hospital. I mean, sure, I bought myself a sprig of dendrobium or freesia every so often because I’d walk by the most amazing florist on the way home from classes at UCLA and sometimes couldn’t resist. But there’s something different about being surprised with a full blown bouquet, y’know? So I take copious photos whenever I get one, to make them last longer.

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from The Velvet Kerfuffle.

In which she does nothing but sleep and twitch ;-) New fancy camera, though!

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from The Velvet Kerfuffle.

The husband (!!!) got me a new camera for my birthday, so I’ve been testing all the settings on random stuff around the house lately. One of these subjects happened to be the birdfeeder on our balcony, which I put out a few weeks ago for this year’s fall/winter feeding season. The birdfeeder only gets put out after all the plants growing on the balcony are pretty much dead, so that frequent diners won’t start helping themselves to a side of green salad along with their birdseed. My motivation for feeding our avian neighbors is far from selfless — the cats LOVE watching the feathery parade and will sit at the window for half the day just staring. And occasionally chattering excitedly or making small mews of yearning. Which is great for me, because that’s a long chunk of hours when I don’t have to be yelling at one cat or another for scratching the couch and chewing the wallpaper. This set of photos shows the two main birds that come visit us, the Great Tit (the yellow and black ones) and the House Sparrow (the little brown guys almost everybody’s familiar with). We also get a few other varieties as the weather gets colder — I’m pretty sure I saw a waxwing last year. I’ll take pictures this year and then I can find out for sure by comparing with descriptions online :-)

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RIP

Oct. 8th, 2011 09:53 pm
pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

Taking a few minutes from the wedding-planning madness to say a sad farewell to my clunky burgundy Deréon frames — I was very fond of them and sad that they only lasted for two years. Two hard-wearing years, mind you, factoring in the amount of travel and the somewhat reckless manner in which my eyewear sometimes gets tossed into bags. Still, I wasn’t quite expecting them to CRACK IN HALF one morning in the middle of making breakfast. Luckily, they did not fall in the frying pan. Unluckily, it happened a few days before we left for a family trip to Bulgaria, sending me on a crazy last-minute run to the optician for some contact lenses to last me until a new pair of glasses could be made. And to make matters worse, I’d managed to crack my only other wearable pair of frames just a few weeks before. Talk about your weird luck. I’m such a pack rat that it was hard to part with these, even though there was no way to salvage them. So into the trash they go, and this blog post is mostly to soothe the ickiness I feel over having to throw them out.

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from The Velvet Kerfuffle.

It has been brought to my attention that I have not posted any cat pictures for nearly half a year. OMG, what sort of blog am I running here if I’m forgetting to post about my cats? o.O

To remedy this, I present to you not one but TWO Misu and Coco videos, plus a photo gallery of assorted furry goodness ;-)

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

So, remember ages ago when me and my two best buddies were turning out a huge pile of these wizard robes to order? We refer back to that time fondly now as “our little sweatshop that could.”

Well, let’s just say that you can’t make that many robes without having some extra fabric left over. So several years after I moved on from that venture, I still had a healthy amount of fabric in Hogwarts house colors lurking in my fabric closet. Quite a bit of it is still waiting back in California for the next time I come over to haul back more of my crap from the parents’ house. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the last couple of times I cut something out from fabric, I immediately turned to the wizard robe leavings.

I haven’t done a lot of sewing in the past couple of years, though, due to various life-changing events taking up most of my time. Frankencloset items and t-shirt makeovers don’t really count as fully-fledged sewing projects in my head, since a good portion of the hems and seams are already done — you’re just creatively editing a garment. Sort of like a box of pre-mixed birthday cake. My hands started getting twitchy for something a bit more in-depth this past weekend, so I dug through my work-in-progresses and pulled a burgundy dress that I’d traced out back in California more than a year ago. Recreational garment making is quite soothing — something I’d forgotten after all these years of work-related sewing machine time. It was a great way to get my mind off the whirl of wedding planning concerns for a day.

Yeah, the darts are a little mismatched because I didn’t bother with any of that meticulous measuring-and-pinning stuff ;-) It’ll mostly be worn with a cardigan or shawl, so none of that will show anyway. Good to know that my zipper-setting skillz are still intact, too. The last repurposed robe fabric dress I made was this little thing:

Also used mainly for layering. The fabric is a polyester twill, so it’s best for fall and winter when its heat-trapping qualities are most appreciated. They go especially well with my collection of turtlenecks and long-sleeved tees that are too wildly patterned to be paired with anything else. That was the last of my robe fabric here in Finland, though, so there will probably be Finnish fabric shopping in my immediate future. Mmmm, fabric. A couple more layering pieces and I’ll be back in shape for that Regency ballgown I was planning to make this Christmas…

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

I just decided last night on what I’d be wearing for this one. It’s in the afternoon on the day before the church event, so there’s a lot more room to wiggle. My criteria were: (1) knee-length-ish, (2) more casual, (3) lace, and (4) different silhouette from other two. It actually took really long to shop, because there were so many more options for this kind of stuff. Almost every store has something, while you can eliminate a large chunk of stores when shopping for long, fancy gowns. So these are the runners up, in gallery form with links in the captions for those interested. Thanks TONS to Jam & Cim for their encouragement and hand-holding along the way :-)

Funny side note — my dad was looking through my blog the other day and got really confused when I explained that not a single one of those pictures was actually of dresses that I bought. That wasn’t the point at all. The point was that I saw an awful. lot. of. dresses. And these just happened to be the ones that I’d like to see again, at some point in time :-) Nothing wrong with posting eye candy. This is a fashion blog, after all.

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

Once the main gown was figured out, everything else got much easier. I knew what silhouettes to look for and what colors (if there wasn’t an option for aubergine, it didn’t advance beyond the first cut) to match, so it was merely a case of finding something that would work for all the girls. Even then, there weren’t very many fitting concerns, really, other than some varying bust sizes. These girls would look good in burlap sacks, truth be told. So it was a lot of fun getting to shop for them.


A Bill Levkoff number that was vetoed on account of the large bust flower detail, which would have been a bit much for those who already have enough on top.


A pretty Eden Bridals dress that was put on the back burner for fear that the bust pleating would be too full.


A Saison Blanche gown that I decided was a bit too simple, though I liked the neckline details.


A Cameron Blake number that was too spendy and also would have looked awkward on those without enough to fill out the ample cups.

And a handful more that I had pictures for but no links…

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery.

With a lot of my shopping done, I’m now getting around to deleting bookmarks for stuff that didn’t make the cut for one reason or another. They’re still pretty, though, so I figured it’d be nice to put them here as a little memento of several late night hours spent dress hunting. This will be the post of eye candy from the search for the church gown. Yes, I’m making distinctions because there are several wardrobe changes involved :-)


Actually, this was my first choice but I only found the picture originally on TheKnot and then wasn’t able to track down any more information on where to actually purchase it. I eventually found a Chinese place that apparently makes knockoffs of it, but didn’t particularly feel like taking my chances since it wasn’t a company I’d heard of. Boo. Eh, I might get it one of these days anyway because I really do love it.


One in a similar style that I stumbled upon while looking for the previous dress. Same site.


Yeah, I have a serious thing for empire waisted gowns. This one is just adorably Regency. Same site.


From another site run by the same company. I really wish I knew who the original designers of these things were!


Hey, a place that carries that real deal! With corresponding prices, of course. A pretty Mori Lee lace number.


While looking for gowns with a bit of historical influence, I ended up at one place that specialized in modest gowns. They actually had some really cute dresses. This one is very Regency.


Same place as previous. The gown has an Edwardian flavor.


A few more from unidentified designers on yet another Chinese knockoff site. Booming industry, it seems. Loving the use of lace on this one.


Another Regency flavored one.


And one that’s actually similar to what I ended up getting.

And finally, a handful that I couldn’t even find pages for outside of general galleries. So, more for inspiration than anything else. Because, pretty!

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Mirrored from Velvet Kerfuffle Kitchen and Garden.

Did some much needed work on the plants in the apartment this past week. The two backyard gardens thrive on benign neglect, since they have access to plenty of sun and rain, but the ones here need a bit more attention to be at their best.

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pierydys: (pic#507823)

Originally published at Velvet Kerfuffle Fashion and Costumery. Please leave any comments there.

Right. So I was doing a bit of reception dress shopping last week. Because it wouldn’t be my wedding without a few wardrobe changes, naturally. I found a dress, by the by. I ordered it and it should arrive next month. But that is not really the subject of this post. The subject is, rather, the pages and pages of crazy stuff that I had to flip through in order to find the pretty stuff. Like, really, you have to wonder how some of this stuff even got produced. But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself…


(with additional commentary courtesy of the lovely Cimorene)


Angela: good grief how strictly ballroom is this:



cimorene: that reminds me of the prom dresses from the early 90s as well.


Angela: ooooh. no, THIS does.



cimorene: HAHAHAH

Angela: god i would love to put somebody in that as a costume though. it's so bad it's brilliant

cimorene: totally. i feel it's like what you would see in, for example, a poirot or miss marple episode where the victim was an obvious copy of elizabeth taylor or something.

Angela: good grief. it's like they started out with a swimsuit and forgot to cut away the rest of it.



Angela: now THIS is a halloween dress


cimorene: wow, i love that halloween dress. i really love black net over nude drsses.

Angela: now here's on that says "hello, i'm a drag queen."


cimorene: ahahhahahahahha. that is really something.

Angela: "excuse me miss, there's something growing on your neck."



cimorene: hahaha, that looks like a 90s star trek costume.

Angela: just call me cruella


Angela: another entry for miss drag queen usa



Angela: OMGWTF


Angela: just for you, feathers. i'm not entirely sure if this is lingerie or a showgirl outfit, but it's really not a dress.


Angela: you want scifi? here ya go.


cimorene: ahahhahah!

Angela: more feathers. just for you.



cimorene: are those feathered PANTS? or just... a split front or something...

Angela: i... really don't know

cimorene: i am definitely impressed.

Angela: this? takes 'something for everybody" a bit too seriously.



cimorene: ...woooow...it's like lisa frank

Angela: tinkerbell becomes a hooker!



cimorene: HAHAHAHA WHAT

Angela: aw man, i ran out of dresses :-) 

cimorene: wow, that's a surprisingly apt description

Angela: okay, that was an amusing evening

cimorene: hahaha. yyyeaaaaah.

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pierydys: (pic#507823)


Why does my LJ/DW reposter refuse to deal with the latest spammy photo gallery post I made in the Kitchen & Garden blog? No idea, but if it does it again, I might be looking for another plugin. At any rate, lots of random pictures of the current state of my different gardening ventures here: http://food.velvetkerfuffle.net/?p=1963

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